This feature essay on an Matadata librarian focuses on Myung-ja “MJ” Han, currently duty associate professor and metadata librarian of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I got a quick reply as soon as I emailed her in 6/9. I sent 5 questions to MJ, focusing on her background and the work she is doing.

I was once again amazed at her diverse career and the opportunity to start working as a librarian.

Also, I was impressed by the new challenges that came to the United States.

Below is the full text of the interview.

 

Q1. Tell me a little bit about yourself, your career to date?

MJ: I am a metadata librarian at the University of Illinois Library since 2006, first two year as a visiting and from 2008 as a permanent position. This is my third career. I worked for the Samsung Electronics for five years right after college. While there, I made company’s monthly magazine. Then I came to the USA and worked as a reporter, who covered culture and life, at one of the Korean Newspaper companies in New York City, again for five years. After that, I was a stay-home mom for almost 10 years. During that time, our family moved to Champaign, and I started the library school to become a librarian when my daughter started high school, as she did not need a lot of my attention.

 

Q2. How did you get to work in Illinois university library as a librarian?

MJ: I had been working as a graduate assistant while I was at the library school in here. When I looked for a job after graduation, the library received a large grant from the Illinoi State to create a portal for all digital resources about Illinois. The grant supported to hire three librarians, two metadata librarians and one portal librarian. Since the project team had to hire three positions within a month, they did not have enough time to do the full search. Since I worked as a graduate assistant at the Cataloging Unit for two years and took XML related courses, I had ‘enough’ qualifications that the project team looked for.(I always told my students that I was really lucky since I was there at the right time.) I have learned everything any metadata librarian needs to know during the first year as a visiting librarian for the project. After a year, the Library decided to hire the first permanent metadata librarian, and I got the job in 2008.

 

Q3. Please explain briefly what you are doing at work?

MJ: Metadata provision, new workflow /tool development, personnel management are three major things I do now. I provide metadata to service providers including Google and HathiTrust. I also lead library’s cataloging and metadata policy makingprocess and workflow/tool development. Finally, I support other professionals and staff members who work at the unit so they can grow into the profession and perform their best.

 

Q4. What is the most difficult part while doing your work?

MJ: Two things, personnel management and keep up with new trends.

To make people motivated so they can learn new things and involve in new work. There are so many new things to know and learn, the lack of time is also very challenging.

 

Q5. What is your philosophy as a librarian and how has this shaped your career?

MJ: Cataloging and metadata is about relationships and judgment. So I try to find relationships between works I do and make sound decisions based on my experience and knowledge whenever I need to.  I also try to share my ideas/opinions with people and am not afraid of asking any questions that I have and help I need.

 

Many thanks to Myung-ja “MJ” Han for facilitating this interview.